Let’s be honest — nobody can still believe Lucozade to be the elixir of health. And in case you were hanging on to such nostalgic illusions, the Food Commission has recently put paid to them by describing the drink as being nothing more than “liquid candy”. It has a point. Every 380ml bottle has a whopping 64g of sugar in it, which is equivalent to two packs of Trebor Bassett Jelly Beans or nearly 13 teaspoons of sugar.

But what of the plethora of other drinks with added vitamins, minerals and herbal extracts, which are blatantly being marketed to us as wholesome? Drinks such as Spa Fruit Exotique, which boasts nine vitamins and 20% fruit, and has a picture on the bottle of a man leap-frogging over the Spa logo, full of vitality and verve.

Well, the truth is that the 500ml bottle manages to pack in more than 50g of sugars and 200 calories. If 20% of this is fruit sugar from the fruit juice, it still leaves eight teaspoons of “sugar” sugar. And, though the bottle supplies 75% of your daily vitamin C, you could get that from one orange and still have 136 calories to play with. By having the real orange, you would also get a whole stack of supernutrients, some fibre content and the pleasure of eating it.

Just to explain about this fruit-sugar business, fruit sugar is technically known as fructose, and is “better” than sugar because it is absorbed more slowly and gives a gentler blood-sugar rise. But both supply the same amount of calories. This means that drinks such as Amé, “with herbal extracts”, and Aqua Libra — which “restores natural balance”, based on blends of juice extracts — still have almost 116 calories and 90 calories respectively per 330ml.

Then there are the healthy-looking mineral waters such as Volvic, with “a touch of fruit”. Actually, it contains no fruit at all. Instead, it has some fruit flavouring, such as strawberry. What this Volvic drink does have, however, is five teaspoons of added sugar.

My advice? If you need a drink, have water. I don’t know about you, but I’d rather eat my calories, not waste them on sugary drinks.

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